The Journal of a not-so-Humble 'Blin
by HardHatShetland
Summary: Here are the archived entries of a Journal that previously belonged to Gregg, a green Bokoblin in the employ of Ganondorf's 'Blin militia and member of a submarine crew. These entries give a slight insight into the culture of a people most see as mere monsters, the experiences of unknowingly working for a tyrannical madman, and a new perspective on some of the Great Sea's figures.
1. Day 1: Arrival

_**Day 1**_

* * *

Well, this sucks. First I drop my old journal in the sea thanks to my brother's idiocy, and then we arrive late for the big meeting at the Forsaken Fortress because of the stupid bloody wind! I mean, seriously! Doesn't anybody make oars anymore? We had to paddle all the way inside the compound with our hands, for pete's sake! Then we had to suffer the embarassment of walking into the middle of a meeting, late and soaking wet, with everyone glaring at you like you just burned an orphanage to the ground!

I guess we should count ourselves lucky we got to the meeting at all, especially what with Joe's constant babbling about his newest crush. I'm no biologist, but even I know that if he and a human had a child, the mere sight of such an abomination could kill us all.

The bloke who runs this joint didn't bother to show his face at the meeting, leaving one of his dog-headed knight geezers in his place. The bugger had no indoor voice and no sense of space, if the constant falling off of his shoulder armour pieces due to hitting them on things was anything to go by. He stood in front of us all and I can't remember what exactly he said, but it boiled down to "NOW YOU WORK FOR GANODARF OR WHATEVER HE'S CALLED! YOU WILL ALL BE PAID GOOD MONEY ONCE HE'S TAKEN OVER THE GREAT SEA, NOW WANDER AROUND THE PLACE FOR A WEEK OR TWO UNTIL WE SEND YOU ALL OUT TO SEA TO BE MAULED BY GYORGS!"

Well, that sounds like a complete waste of a good year, but hey, can't argue with good money.


	2. Day 2: The Barrack

_**Day 2**_

* * *

Wow, what a menagerie of complete morons I'm in right now. Aside from my brother, Pink Joe, who can't seem to think of anything besides human women, the strange man, there's also one 'blin who insists on wearing a hood indoors like a complete numpty. Everybody calls him 'Hoodie'. I think he's a psycho. I slept in the same bunk as him last night, and I could hear him talking in his sleep, and he was saying some of the craziest stuff. My favourite was "All corn shall be burnt. All soup shall be dumped in the ocean, and the ocean dried to pieces with hot air ripped from the bowels of the ghost ship."

Then there's Dunston, who, also like a complete numpty, wears goggles. Bloody goggles. What purpose could goggles possibly have in a damn forsaken fortress? Thinks he's a right smart arse, but his brain's the size of a pin. Maybe he wears the goggles to stop it from sliding out his eye sockets. Still not quite as stupid as Tipsy and his silly hat, but at least Tipsy's quiet most of the time. Just got to remember to never try having an intelligent conversation with any of them.


	3. Day 5: Boredom

_**Day 5**_

* * *

This is boring. How are we even helping this Ganodarf bloke establish dominance in the Great Sea by sitting around talking about food, the weather, the colours of rupees, and Pink Joe's crush?

I suppose I should explain my job description. Our barrack is one of those charged with operating the searchlights, and since there's no bloody reason whatsoever to use a searchlight in the day, we work the graveyard shift, sleeping at sun, up at moon. The other barracks have pretty much got telescope duty covered.

What's the problem, you ask? Here's how our little roster works: we send one poor sod to man the searchlights for the first ten hours, and then he buggers off and shoves another poor sod in there for the next ten hours, rinse and repeat. Since all the guard duty is done by the Moblins, the end result of this terrible roster is a whole bunch of Bokos scratching their respective arses all night with nothing to do!

So today I try to remedy this. I go up to Moe, the Moblin quartermaster who has a very bizarre idea of love, if his desire to 'eat [the beggar girl from Windfall] for dinner' says anything. I tell him I want a job, and he says "working for whats-his-name is job". So I say "I know, but I want a job within that job. Seriously, help me out here. I'm going to die of boredom. Give me something to do, anything!" Then he says "Brethren not bother with toilet hygiene, but must be clean if want to eat Maggie for dinner! Go clean guard's toilets!"

And lo and behold, I found myself scraping off slops of assorted muck from the inside of a cracked toilet bowl while fighting flies that seemed dead-set on blinding me for life! But, hell, it was preferable to doing absolutely nothing all day, and I provided a valuable service to the fortress, even if I did smell of feces by the end. Thank Din for surprisingly-easily-made-from-leftover-Octorok-oil soap.


	4. Day 7: Ganon

_**Day 7**_

* * *

So, I've been here for a week now, and what has been accomplished in the name of the oh-so almighty Lord Ganondorf? Nothing of any consequence, besides cleaning the Guards' toilets. Yes, it turns out the big boss' name is Ganondorf, NOT Ganodarf, my mistake. Don't know much else about the guy, although I've heard a lot of rumours. Apparently he's some kind of ancient dark wizard or some crazy stuff like that, and Hoodie tells me that the giant masked girl-napping chicken he keeps up at the tower is a pushover compared to his dark, energy-hurling phantom goon that he summons in case of dire emergencies. Sounds fitting to me, but then again, this is Hoodie. Any information one picks up from him should be taken with a grain of salt. He also told me that he drank water that makes trees grow in three seconds flat. Yeah, right.

How did we end up working for the guy, anyway? One of the Bokos in the barrack next to ours says that, a month or two ago, Ganondorf, or 'Ganon' as everyone calls him, just swaggered into the Blin Archipelago with his dog-headed knight mooks like he owned the place. Then he plonked a giant bloody chest of Silver Rupees in front of the Queen herself, and BAM, now we all work for Ganon! So sure, he made the 'Blin Queen a lot richer, but what has he ever done for _me_ besides bore me out of my wits?

I suppose, in the grand scheme of things, it doesn't matter. As long as I'm richer by the end of it. So far, the old cash front hasn't been going well, if that game of Street Craps I played with Dunston is any indication. Managed to raise myself a good 102 Rupees by the end, then Dunston goes "Double or nothing on the next roll?". I accepted. He rolls the dice, it comes up short, and I lost the whole bloody lot. Lucky sod.


	5. Day 12: Rats

_**Day 12**_

* * *

Rats. There sure are a lot of them in here. And they keep stealing our stuff. So the time has come for a little clean-up, I thought. Earlier tonight, I got together everyone else in our barrack, and, while we wait for one of us to be randomly selected for searchlight duty, we decide to spend the night rat-hunting. Because sleeping is too boring for a job that's already packed full of boredom.

Guess what? It was a complete disaster! But with partners like Dunston and Pink Joe, I wasn't surprised. We lay out a few of our Rupees for the rats to steal, a sacrifice for the greater good, and then Joe decides to take the Rupees I put down! Apparently I owe him money, which is the biggest lie I've heard from him in a while, and I've heard hundreds of lies from his unreliable mouth, most of them having to do with 'Lady Linda'.

Of course, he prompts an argument, and while we're all distracted, a rat takes the bait from under our noses and leaves us high and dry! Why not just use All-Purpose Bait, you ask? Because it had all been eaten by the rats, thanks to dreamy sleepy Moe and his short attention span.

Hoodie comes up with another bright idea. Run around, waving our machetes in the air and screaming our heads off, chopping rats to bits. To be fair, he did kill two or three rats, but he also demolished about 9 shelves and got us all thrown in the lock-up for disturbing everybody's sleep. Which is precisely why I'm writing right now; this bloody cell's too cold and wet to sleep in, and my hand will go numb if I don't exercise it somehow!

I'm just glad something interesting is happening, you know?


	6. Day 14: Roster

_**Day 14**_

* * *

Good news! The rat problem has finally been solved! Tipsy managed to get his hands on some All-Purpose Bait from the darkest corners of the storeroom, and, using it, had managed to convince the rats to stop nicking all our things. Tipsy is definitely a lot more than meets the eye, I tell you. Well, if you can even see his eyes, what with his silly hat.

Also, I finally became sick and tired of the endless boredom, with what little excitement that exists delivered by cleaning toilets, so I made a new roster for searchlight duty in our barrack, working on a two-hour, Day A/Day B system to spread the workload more evenly.

Day A:  
7:01PM-9:00PM: Dunston  
9:01PM-11:00PM: Gregg  
11:01PM-1:00AM: Tipsy  
1:01AM-3:00AM: Hoodie  
3:01AM-5:00AM: Pink Joe

Day B is pretty much exactly the same as Day A except the order of duty is reversed. Of course, I've milked the new system for all its worth, placing myself in such a position so that, regardless of the day, I won't be the last one out. Being the last one out makes the wait for it seem longer than it would otherwise. Plus, I kind of like Tipsy, and I know he loves the moonlight, so he's up in the middle of the night, and I know that Dunston despises having to go out both first and last. I consider it revenge for my lost 102 Rupees.

Of course, for the sake of consistency, I had to make it clear to the other barracks that we and we alone operate Searchlight C (the one facing east), and to hammer this point in, I threatened to unleash Hoodie upon their bunks if they stepped out of line. Only time will tell if it works, but judging from the look on their faces when Hoodie started waving his machete around again, I think it will.


	7. Day 20: Deployment

_**Day 20**_

* * *

The new roster I wrote up worked quite well at first, but then of course Dunston had to go muck it up by refusing to go out when he was supposed to, and I had no choice but to rewrite it so that he was in Tipsy's place, and vice versa. I swear, he specializes in making things awkward around here. Tipsy took the fall with grace, thankfully. Saved me a lot of faff.

The good news is, it doesn't matter, because Ganon's doggies have told us that we're finally being sent out to sea! Took them long enough. Even better, our barrack is one of the lucky ones. We're not getting posted onto one of those rickety cannon platforms that stick out of the Great Sea like sore thumbs, oh no. We're going to be a submarine crew! Important stuff, that is. Reconnaisance, espionage and what have you and whatnot. The only problem is, we'll no longer have an 'open leader', so I can kiss goodbye to my little roster. Hopefully we have a good captain. I swear, we better have a good captain, or the others might just sink the bloody thing by crashing into the Fortress on their way out like big silly idiots.

In unrelated news, Ganon has decided to randomly release most of the pointy-eared girls he's had his pet chicken kidnap. Now the only ones still there are Maggie, to Moe's unending joy, and Mila, that spoilt rich girl who had the nerve to smack me about the face with a steel fan a few days back because I refused to get her a glass of lemonade! Honestly. I don't even know what Ganon wants with those girls, but if he's holding them for ransom, he's got the wrong type. Her parents would no doubt choose moolah over Mila.

See what I did there?


	8. Day 21: Captain Skip

_**Day 21**_

* * *

Well, we finally got to meet our captain. Probably the single strangest bloke I ever met, and I mean that in both a good and bad way, if that makes any sense.

How do I put this? Well, first things first. He's called Skip, he's albino, and he wears this great red coat and tricorne hat. Why is he strange? Honestly, I'm not entirely sure. It's just something about him that rubs me the wrong way.

Maybe it's the way he just doesn't stop talking when he starts, or maybe it's his apparent delusion that he's living in one of those old adventurous legends about the Hero of Time or something ridiculous like that. Funny, when he took out his map to plot the course for the sub for the first time, I swear I saw a little drawing in the side depicting a very Skip-like figure next to what I believe are called the Triumph Forks... which look nothing like forks. Those bloody strange golden triangles... what could be so special about those? They're just triangles. What, if there was a golden square... how bloody powerful would that be? Maybe it'd turn you into a great giant with spindly legs and a divine beard of divinity!

Well, thankfully, he seems to know what he's doing. Contrary to what I thought previously, we didn't sink on the way out of the fortress like big silly idiots. So, to the Great Sea. Apparently our first stop is Windfall Island to do some reconnaissance. Ganon's still keeping up his search for pointy-eared girls for Gods-know-what reason. Maybe if we encounter this 'Linda' my brother keeps going on about, we could bring her in. Or I could threaten to do so. Maybe not, actually... I may be a spoilsport in his eyes, but I have no intention of being an arse about it. Otherwise I'll end up just like Dunston.


	9. Day 23: Cannonballs and Fairies

_**Day 23**_

* * *

Today we took a stop-over at this place called Spectacle Island. When we got there, Skip thought we were under attack, because some bugger was shooting cannonballs into the sea. It turns out it was just a bloody shooting range. Tipsy and Hoodie decided to go get the owner to cut it out while I was on lookout duty. Windfall Island was in clear sight, but I wasn't interested in that; I was more interested in the island to the north, with an odd-looking shell stuck to it.

Skip told me it's home to a Great Fairy of Riches of some sort, but it's probably bollocks. I've heard people go on and on about how fairies are in hiding or going extinct or some stuff like that, so why would a hidey-hole for an oh-so-elusive Great Fairy of Riches be in a bright pink conch shell that sticks out on the horizon like an arrow in a Bullbo's arse? Surely it'd know that if everyone found it and got granted riches beyond their wildest dreams, then that'd just ruin the economy.

Actually, it's even worse than that; he also told me that the Mother & Child Isles we passed on the way here have an even Greater Fairy hidden in there somewhere. Too bad nobody's been able to get in there thanks to that giant bloody rock wall. Not like any of it matters; after I retired to the hold amongst all the explosions, I find out that Tipsy somehow managed to win the grand prize from the bloody shooting gallery. I don't know if he's smarter than he looks or if he's just the luckiest bastard I've ever met. Either way, I'm not too sure trying to win some off him in Craps would be a good idea.


	10. Day 28: Windfall Recon

_**Day 28**_

* * *

I have to say, this submarine is surprisingly spacious. From the surface, I'd forgive you for thinking that it's just a giant barrel with a door stuck to the top, but nope. Our hammocks, dining room, and map room are all the same room, but it's a bloody big room. This is good, because we've been performing reconnaissance around Windfall Island for the last few days, so we haven't been able to surface. It does get real bloody hot down here, though... I just ran out of handkerchiefs that hadn't already absorbed bucketloads of sweat, and I think the heat's getting to Hoodie. He's talking to himself awake now; I could hear him mumbling "you take it apart, but it back together, take it apart, put it back together, 'til the flying clowns go to town and whisk the ReDeads away." Sounds almost poetic, in an insane way.

Skip doesn't seem like the social type, as he hardly leaves his quarters and the periscope chamber at the Aft of the sub. I wouldn't mind so much if he had at least appointed someone as First Mate so they could order issues in lieu of him. Preferably me, so I can reinstate my old roster. I still think it was a brilliant idea.

Two days ago, I finally got a chance to muck around with the periscope, as part of the great search for pointy-eared girls. Unfortunately all I could see on the island were some giant sailors dragging away some fat bugger dressed like a fairy into the island lock-up. I have no idea who that bugger was or why he was dressed idiotically, but some deep part of me thinks he deserved it.

But wait, I hear you asking, how do I know that's the island lock-up? Because I've been here before, and to put it nicely, the Hylians on Windfall aren't exactly hospitable to our kind. And to put it horribly, they're a bunch of racists. I've no idea how they can get away with naming their little Big Brother organisation the 'Joy Association'... yes, Joy to all them vain and shallow bastards who like to hold auctions for no reason whatsoever besides throwing away perfectly good Rupees.

How naive I was... I hid out in this house where a big bearded bloke lived. He seemed like he couldn't care less about a 'Blin in his house, but then I saw he had an obsession with Pictographs. Okay, whatever, but then he started following me around the building, talking right into my ear in an extremely off-putting way, and his bad breath certainly didn't help. I soon deduced that the Joy Pendants I came there to 'collect' were not worth the bother, so I made my excuses and left. After stealing one of his Picto-Boxes, of course. I think I sold it to Beedle... no idea where the money I got from it has gone. It's probably in Dunston's pocket.


	11. Day 31: Tipsy's 'Prize'

_**Day 31**_

* * *

So we finished up our reconnaissance of Windfall and surprise, surprise, not a single bloody pointy-eared girl in sight. Though I did catch sight of that mutton chop sod who's in charge of the 'Joy Association', though. Sitting up there on his wooden bench, with his flowers and his... coffee. Did I mention that he made me drink vegetable oil and had a bucktoothed sailor break both my legs during my previous visit to Windfall? What a bastard. I hope Ganon's dog-head geezers cut his throat.

Also, it turned out that the 'Grand Prize' that Tipsy won back at Spectacle Island was this weird thing... this glass container with a little heart inside. No bloody idea what it does, and evidently neither does Tipsy. He gave it to me. I tried giving it to Pink Joe, but he said it reminded him too much of Linda; he's been moping on and on for hours now (albeit poorly disguised as 'getting over her'), because he couldn't find her when he snuck onto the island a couple days ago. Then he got a black eye and was chucked into the sea. It's almost as if she's a racist like everyone else on the island. Who knows... though I suppose by saying that they're all racist, I myself am being racist. He who meets monsters! Whatever, hopefully this bit of rubbish will fetch a good bargain at Beedle's.

Actually, I was hoping that Skip might know, but it looked like he was too busy polishing that bottle of his to care. Oh yes, I forgot to mention his bottle. I swear, he carries that around with him all over the place, and the number one thing that keeps me awake at night... is Joe's snoring. But the number two thing is the distant sound of squeaks as he shines the sodding thing. I tried asking him what it's for, but instead he, in a very long speech about 'loyalty' and 'Wolfos' and something about 'not leaving the Lens of Truth lying around in a chest for anyone to just take', offered to make me First Mate if I didn't ask him about it anymore. Weird, but whatever, now I can exercise power again!


	12. Day 33: Nonsense

_**Day 33**_

* * *

Yesterday Skip decided to talk me, as a reward for accepting his offer, through Ganon's wider plan for taking over the Great Sea, because apparently he managed to attend the super-secret meeting of the dark council of let's-keep-the-militia-in-the-dark or something like that. Well, the last five minutes of it, anyway. It's still bloody vague, but he says Ganon has his eye on some kind of underwater castle. No word on what's inside the castle except for some mentions of a 'key'. That still doesn't explain all the pointy-eared girls that he's going out of his way to find, amidst all the murderous crushes and the whining and the face-slapping. If he wants a bratty daughter, can't he just adopt one?

Back to the present day, I decided to get to work writing up a new roster, but then what happens? Dunston! He goes up to me and starts blabbering this nonsense...

"Why are you trying to force us into a grind, Gregg?" he says. "Because it'll make things less boring, and more productive" I said. "How? Making things organised always makes it more boring! It has to be free and flowy, like the sea itself!" he retorts, a bit of brain trying to escape past his goggles as he does (metaphorically). "What's the logic in that?" I ask. "There is no logic, that's the whole idea! Logic only slows things down! We want to be free to set our own working schedule!" he says.

I could already tell what he was getting at here. So I say to him "And we both know that your 'working schedule' would be half an hour swiveling the periscope, followed by a half-hour swim in the sea, at which point you might get mauled by a Gyorg. Not only would none of that accomplish anything, but it'd also force me and the others do a lot more." So how does he respond to this? Well, I can only say that he gave me the most thoughtful, intelligent, mind-blowing thing I've ever heard in my life... he said:

"Shut up! You're just one of those Stop Having Fun guys!" Then he stormed off to his hammock to dream of Peahats, no doubt. Well, I know which one of us is going to get a bigger cut of the action once Ganon has taken over... somehow.


	13. Day 37: Repairs

_**Day 37**_

* * *

We were supposed to be at Dragon Roost island by now, to pick up some supplies and relay the intel we gathered to the local commander, but nothing's ever that simple, is it? We've been stuck out here for the past four days because the stupid bastard submarine has a stupid bastard leak, and if we don't stupid bastard fix it, it's going to stupid bastard sink and stupid bastard drown us all.

I don't know what stupid bastard thing caused the stupid bastard leak, but I have a stupid bastard suspicion that stupid bastard Dunston, the stupid bastard, had a stupid bastard hissy fit and punched the stupid bastard wall a bit too stupid bastard hard in his stupid bastard brainless frustration. But it's probably something more 'mundane', like maybe a stupid bastard rock outside of stupid bastard Pawprint Isle.

But that's only half the stupid bastard reason I'm putting 'stupid bastard' in front of everything. The other half is that, while I was on telescope duty last night as Tipsy and Joe tried patching up the hole for the seventh stupid bastard time (apparently Moe didn't think to supply us with some spare wood in case this happened. Stupid bastard), some stupid bastard treasure hunters wearing stupid bastard helmets absent-mindedly crashed into my Pontoon and knocked me into the stupid bastard water.

Because we, as a species, are not really built for swimming (there's a stupid bastard reason why stupid bastard Blinopolis looks like a giant stupid bastard construction site) I had to thrash about in the stupid bastard sea in order to get within claw reach of the stupid bastard sub. I saw a plank sticking out the side, and so I naturally grab onto it to haul myself up, and guess what? It was the stupid bastard source of the leak, and I inadvertently dislodged the bloody stupid bastard thing even further!

So once I get back up to the Pontoon, I see that the stupid bastard treasure hunters have run away like the stupid bastards they are, and of course when I get back inside, I'm ankle-deep in sea water and Joe's panicking and screaming his stupid bastard head off.

I figured Tipsy may be able to fix it better if he knew about the source of the leak, so I direct him to it, and then, naturally, Dunston starts slagging me off because I had endangered everyone's lives or something. Yes, never mind the fact that I could've drowned to death otherwise! Stupid bastards, the lot of them. And why the bloody hell does Skip covet that stupid bastard bottle of his!? What, is there a sea-wide empty bottle shortage that I didn't know about?


	14. Day 38: Rationing

_**Day 38**_

* * *

The good news tonight is that Tipsy was able to repair the leak, but Skip's telling us that we can't move at the usual pace because another leak could occur at any moment, and we don't have the right tools to pump the seawater out of the sub, at least not without breaking open the hull and causing the bloody thing to sink like a stone.

That whole thing was the good news. The slightly better news, by comparison, is that we're running low on food supplies. When we first set off from the Fortress we had about two crates-full of biscuits and powdered milk, a crate of salted porkchops, a box of extra salt in case the saltiness isn't making your tongue bleed (and there's not enough salt in the bloody sea we're surrounded on all sides by), a crate of celery and carrots, a metal box of lemons, and a water purifier.

Skip was too absorbed in reading his bedtime stories about the Triumph Forks to bother making a ration table, so Joe's gobbled up most of the salted porkchops, the greedy bastard. And Dunston broke the water purifier after he poured three bloody cans of powdered milk into it when it was already full of water, thinking that it could double as a milk-maker that way. Din knows we can't all survive on bloody carrots, celery and lemons. Have you ever tried subsisting on celery for a week? It tastes like crap and you'll look like a wooden fence with some tarpaulin draped over it by the end.

Since I'm the First Mate and therefore I have to cautiously handle the volcanic crew, as a writer might put it, I set up a strict rationing scheme: Per Boko, per day, only a quarter of a porkchop, two sticks of celery, two carrots and three slices of lemon, as well as no more than a single can of milk, until we can stock up on supplies. Also, as many biscuits as you like, but nobody likes those biscuits except Tipsy, for some bloody reason. Those biscuits are as hard as rusting iron and taste twice as bad, and they'd probably leave as many cuts and infections in your esophagus.

Naturally, Dunston was complaining, so I gave him a smack round the face. Yes, I have the authority to do that now. Score one for Gregg!


	15. Day 40: Tetra

_**Day 40  
**_

* * *

Well now, looks like something's finally getting done. Too bad fate picked the worst possible time to make us do our bloody jobs.

Skip spotted a great sodding pirate ship on the horizon, and we had to choose between possibly drowning to death in the course of submerging and possibly getting blown to bits by filthy thieving sea rats. We elected for the former and had to bear with a knee-high water level while we observed the pirates sailing past.

This is where things got interesting. I looked through the periscope and caught sight of this short little pointy-eared girl with blinding blonde hair. I thought she might have been the cabin girl until I saw her punch a guy three times her height in the bollocks and get away scot-free. Imagine, a tiny bird like that being a pirate captain.

The important thing was that she was an almost exact match for the description of the pointy-eared girl Ganon was looking for (that was only given to the high-rankers, including myself once I got 'promoted'); short, blonde hair, tanned, mean streak, _very_ pointy ears. I should've figured it out before, he was looking for a specific pointy-eared girl. I relayed this information to Skip, and it got him talking at lightning speed, pacing back and forth and whooping like a madman. It's amazing how bipolar that bastard is; one minute he just stands there like a lemon, and the next he's making a scene like he's the lead in a Blinopolis stage Soap. He decided to take a look in the periscope, and he figured the girl was this infamous pirate called Tetra, who lead the only crew with the biggest bollocks to raid the Blin Archipelago in thirty years. Apparently nobody saw any part of her besides her face, because little girls only make grown men piss themselves in terror _after_ they've destroyed a good deal of property.

Hoodie volunteered to draw a sketch of the girl based on my description, and after he had demonstrated his surprisingly good art skills, Skip brought out this decrepit portrait of a spoilt princess-looking girl. They looked startlingly similar, we both noticed, and Skip tells me that the princess girl is, or was, in possession of some Godlike power. If he's right, Ganon can't exactly be the big, huggable, cookie-baking adoption-lover that Joe makes him out to be.

He may not be a saint, but if there's one thing me and the 'Blin Queen hate, it's fun-loving idiots. And if there's two things me and the Queen hate, it's fun-loving idiots and spoilt bratty princess-types (see my experiences with Mila, the little so-and-so). A couple minutes ago, Skip and I wrote up a search and capture warrant for Tetra, to be copied and issued to all militia-'Blins in the Great Sea, once we can get it to the commander at Dragon Roost. They better give me a raise for this! Rupees or Joy Pendants, whatever, just material recognition for my natural talents.


	16. Day 42: Dragon Roost

_**Day 42**_

* * *

So, we finally arrived at Dragon Roost island yesterday. 'Island'. More like a giant pillar. If the Goddesses were men, I'd say they were compensating for something.

The militia have a little sub base that can only be accessed via underwater cave, which is how we were able to avoid all the pesky Ritos hanging around. They're not racists unlike those Windfall bastards, but we can't be sure we won't ruffle their feathers by setting up a base right under their beaks. Their hot, sweaty, molten, lava-filled beaks!

I can't believe this, while we've been here, Joe's actually been collecting all his sweat in a bucket, and it was filled to the brim in less than ten minutes. Apparently Dunston gave him that idea, told him we wouldn't have anything to drink while I was in charge of rationing. Bastard.

On a more important note, Skip and I managed to get Tetra's search-and-capture warrant to the man in charge, this Moblin bloke called Page. This being the centre of the Great Sea's postal service, he had managed to nick some of the Ritos' printing presses, thanks to his man on the inside. Rito called Ilari. Very well-groomed and well-spoken. The last person the Windfall bastards would expect to be helping us out. He communicates our major orders through discreet back-channels, amongst other things, provided he gets a hefty share of the Rupees, Joy Pendants and Golden Feathers we pick up in the island's AO. Not like we have much choice; the Rito chief will be giving birth to live young if he finds out about this. But the Ritos can be very forgiving of _each other_, under the right conditions.

Ilari isn't the kind of [literal] bird you'd want to piss off, in any case. The outbursts he's had with some of his customers are the stuff of nightmares, I'll have you know. "If I drank a glass of sea water for every bit of my time you've wasted, the Great Sea would be a mere puddle!" was my favourite from his quote mine. He'd also be dead in such an event, but, you know. Metaphors.


	17. Day 44: Mother Mail

_**Day 44**_

* * *

Today, Ilari brought in all the post from our families, and of course we had to rummage through the pile for some time since we're all so attached to our relatives; those backstabbing Windfall bastards could learn a thing or two from us.

Much to me and my brother's glee, mum had sent us a package with her letter. The letter read:

_'Dear Gregg and Pink Joe, two of my three sons,_

_I trust you are contributing a great deal to the cause of Mr. Ganondorf. The Queen has been spreading around the wealth he nicely donated to her, spending it on civic developments here in Blinopolis. The first thing she's had the Moblins construct is a grand theatre. It's about time; the rain was always too much for our great traditions of the stage._

_I find it amazing how many silver rupees Mr. Ganondorf was able to procure. As one of the Queen's housekeepers, I caught sight of the hoard; you wouldn't believe it even if you were there to see it. Hundreds and thousands of them... I suppose it makes sense. You'd need that many for it to be worth anything, since rupees are so ubiquitous so as to be almost completely worthless. Haha _(yes, she actually wrote that)_, if only those Hylians over in the Great Sea knew that._

_Speaking of which, I'd love to know about the exotic places I'm sure you've been to. I've never been to the Great Sea, but I've heard a lot of stories. Apparently there's fairies and hidden towers, and beautiful heart-shaped glass containers to be found... though no-one knows what they do. Please, tell me everything! Though that Forsaken Fortress place you told me about doesn't sound too good, especially not that Moe character. Gregg, Joe, I think you should avoid him at all costs. He sounds like a pervert._

_I haven't gotten any word from your father yet. I'm a little worried... he's been away on his expedition to the uncharted regions ever since Mr. Ganondorf arrived. That was nearly six months ago. I know that you two said you were fine working for him in your last letter, but I don't think your father is as enthusiastic as you. I don't think he likes Mr. Ganondorf. If that's the case, I think he's paranoid. Mr. Ganondorf is one of the most wholesome people I've heard of in a while. There's few enough of those in the world as it is._

_Teal Joe seems to be doing well for himself, though he seems a little nervous about his 'prestigious posting'. He hasn't told me where he's going to do his part, but I'm sure it won't be that bad._

_Anyway, I'm giving you two some of my homemade shortbread. I know you love my shortbread, and I'm sure you deserve it for your contribution. Also, some extra Joy Pendants, because Din knows you won't make it far when you return to Blinopolis with mere rupees._

_Lots of love, mum._

_PS: Gregg, try not to get thrown in the lock-up again. That's the third time this year.'_

Well now, maybe now I'll have someone to give that weird-arse heart thing to. I'm still a little tempted to sell it to Beedle, though... as long as he pays me in Joy Pendants, anyway.

Also, yes! Shortbread! That is what I call a result. I know Joe is going to gobble his up later tonight like the... lovable pig he is (I can't be annoyed at him after having read that letter. Damn you, blood-based sentimentality!). Me, I'm going to save mine for later. The tongue-licking wait is just as tasty as the shortbread itself. Well, nearly as tasty.

I think Joe was a bit too enthusiastic about it, though. When he got his shortbread, I saw him spin around and hold it up in the air, going "da da da daaaa!", to which I said "what the fuck, mate?"

Yes, I don't swear that much.


	18. Day 46: Zoras?

_**Day 46**_

* * *

Nothing much of note actually happened today or yesterday, but I did learn some interesting things from Captain Skip that I thought I'd record here. Make things more interesting when I turn this into an autobiography.

He let me have dinner with him in his private quarters in the caverns, away from all the rabble. It was nice to get some peace and quiet for once. I asked if Joe could come with me, but retracted my request after I realised that would sort of defeat the whole point of me accepting his offer in the first place. Again, damn blood-based sentimentality.

Apparently, before Skip joined the militia, he was captain of a crew of treasure hunter-slash-archaeologists; he'd spent nearly his whole life searching for something big, hidden under the Great Sea; "mark my words, Mr. Gregg, I WILL learn of the secrets under the sea, or die trying!" he said about it, flailing his arms around. Quite the enthusiast.

He'd been to this weird-arse temple place underneath Headstone Isle, wherever that is, and collected some ancient tablets. Those tablets were somehow connected to the spoilt bratty princess girl he showed me, and the 'Godlike power' she had, and that underwater castle Ganon's apparently interested in. Honestly, I couldn't give a rat's behind about what Ganon wants with all this ancient stuff; after all, if it's that old, everyone it belonged to is long dead, and I'm sure he can sic his phantom goon on any Stalfos hanging around it.

But here's what I found interesting; he and his old mates from his archaeology crew reckon that the Ritos used to be this race of fish-people called the 'Zoras', but evolved into bird-people after the sea rose thousands of years ago. At first, I thought it sounded ridiculous; after all, surely a race of fish-people would thrive in this giant tounge-bleedingly salty swimming pool. But now that I think about it...

If they only ever lived in smaller, inland bodies of water back before the sea rose, then it'd be reasonable to assume they dominated them and they had no predators. But when the sea did rise, it forced a huge number of dangerous land-based predators and previously insignificant aquatic creatures to evolve, adapting to the new aquatic environment. The Zoras were, presumably, not prepared for this and got massacred, and so the survivors evolved into the Ritos so they could escape to the skies, away from all the new predators.

Well, one thing's for sure; I doubt they'll ever come away from the skies, unless they somehow gain the ability to fly to the moon. No idea why they'd want to do that, though; as far as I can tell, the moon's a grey, crater-filled wasteland. No green plains or nothing.


End file.
